The strongest and most evil spirits…
rekindled the dozing passions.
–every ordered society puts the passions to sleep…

Time and again they reawakened
the sense of comparison, of contradiction,
of delight in what is new, daring, un-attempted;
they forced humankind to pit opinion against opinion,
ideal model against ideal model.

Mostly by force of arms,
by toppling boundary stones, by violating pieties
– but also by means of new religions and moralities!

In every teacher and preacher
of what is new
we find the same ‘mischief’
that makes conquerors infamous,…

In every age the good men
are those who bury the old thoughts deeply
and make them bear fruit – the farmers of the spirit.

That land eventually exhausted, and
the plowshare of evil
must come time and again.

The Gay Science by Friedrich Nietzsche, trans. by R. G. Hollingdale, aphorism 4

On occasion a conversation stays with me.  A point of view is expressed that ignites persistent reflection.  I friend expressed to me: whereas the majority of registered voters in red states surely have indicated their approval of draconian restrictions on the right of choice for females regarding reproductive health, that effectively ends the issue.  The ultimate end, “finished” by will-of-the-people!

I felt repulsed by the thought that any majority could decree that half of us are subservient.  A category of healthcare requisite for well being is ruled unavailable upon risk of the hammer of “the law,” — if you happen to be female.

Clearly many of us are rendered somnolent by the comfort of a first-world lifestyle, above all exemplified by our Evangelical Protestant mega-churches.  Too many have been sold a counterfeit product. I mean the emotional rush that you get by immersion in a crowd of thousands. That wash of comfort you feel with the sound and sight of highly staged entertainment. And the seeming “truth” of the familiar hymns, of quotations from the holy scripture articulated with sonorous voice…  When all of that causes you to believe you are “the chosen” by God…  You have been seduced “out of your mind” by charlatans.

That feeling, that conviction– that word your deity has commanded must be enacted into law.

    WTF!

It is not “ok” to allow decisions which are unjust, hurtful to humans (to the earth for that matter) to stand. What else but proof positive that the land is exhausted, sterile, no longer life-sustaining! Time enough, necessary, propitious, the cutting edge of the plowshare needs applied to the work.

Help Wanted:  One with a plowshare sharpened for work…